Today I went to a "meet the press" lunch at the NAM and met some really interesting people. I also heard some rather alarming comments, like "string theory isn't a theory" from a scientist! I quickly corrected this misconception.Afterward, a writer from New Scientist approached me about our group's work on PTAs and the famous yet-to-be-published paper. He said to keep him in the loop and he's really excited to work with us on writing an article :) Later on in the afternoon, Ben from The Naked Scientists asked for an interview for their podcast, and I was more than happy to oblige. I'll put up a link to the podcast when it comes out!

You may have guessed by its conspicuous absence on the arXiv, that our group paper is not yet finished... but it's almost done, and the powers that be have been working their wee buts off, so no one can ask any more. I'll be really happy when this is done..

The paper still isn't done.. although I guess we're close now than we were (?). It's just dragging on forever! As far as my other work is concerned, I have a function that should give me a positive definite matrix, but doesn't. Why?! I don't know.With 3 hours of teaching ahead of me this afternoon, I doubt I'll know the answer to that this week. Sigh...

Today our group was "strongly encouraged" to send comments to the CBC group about 2 new papers. Being in the 2nd year of my PhD and working mostly with pulsar timing arrays (to date), I felt superlatively under qualified for this task... but did so anyway. The comments were very basic, like " you didn't define this well-known term".. but whatever! I did it!

This is a post for all the ladies studying here at Birmingham (at post graduate level or above). There is a now a wiki for the WIP group where you can find out about woman-oriented awards, travel funds and conferences.If you are not currently on the group mailing list, please contact me and you can be added immediately.